What was the greatest battle in Roman history?
The Teutoburg Forest in AD 9 tops our ranking: Arminius destroyed three legions, and Rome gave up making Germany beyond the Rhine a province. Next come Alesia in 52 BC, Actium in 31 BC, Zama in 202 BC and the fall of Carthage in 146 BC. The list runs from Lake Trasimene in 217 BC to Adrianople in AD 378.
For six centuries, from Hannibal's ambush at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC to the death of the emperor Valens at Adrianople in AD 378, Rome's fate was decided in battle, in disasters it barely survived as well as in victories that remade the ancient world. These fifteen battles are ranked by score, with most weight on how well known each one is and on what it decided for Rome, and defeats count as fully as victories. We count battles on land and at sea fought by Rome up to AD 476, and sieges such as Alesia when they decided a war; see how we chose and ranked them.1
1 Teutoburg Forest, AD 9
- Where
- Probably near Kalkriese, Lower Saxony, Germany
- War
- Augustus' conquest of Germania
- Sides
- Three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus vs Germanic tribes under Arminius
- Strength
- Three legions with their auxiliaries and camp followers; Germanic numbers unknown
- Result
- Three legions destroyed; Varus killed himself
For twenty years Rome had worked to make the land between the Rhine and the Elbe a province, and by AD 9 it seemed almost done. The governor, Publius Quinctilius Varus, commanded the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth legions and their auxiliaries, the army of Germania Inferior. Arminius, a Cheruscan noble who had been Rome's ally and held the rank of a Roman knight, lured him onto ground of his choosing with news of a rebellion.2
Cassius Dio, writing two centuries later, describes a column strung out in forest and rain, attacked for days until Varus and his senior officers took their own lives. In Rome, Suetonius writes, Augustus posted night watches, left his hair and beard uncut for months and cried, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Six years later Germanicus' army found the field strewn with bleaching bones and skulls nailed to trees, and buried the dead. Rome came back with eight legions, but in AD 16 the campaigns were called off and Germania stayed outside the empire. Myth vs fact: the hills near Detmold, where the Hermann monument went up in 1875, got the name Teutoburg Forest only in the 17th century; the finds point to Kalkriese.3
Why it ranks here: It is No. 1 because it takes full marks for recognition, consequence and memory: it is the Roman disaster every reader knows, and it fixed the empire's frontier on the Rhine. Decisiveness is 4, because Rome fought on in Germany until AD 16, and certainty 3, because every figure comes from later writers and the site is still argued over.
2 Alesia, 52 BC
- Where
- Mont Auxois, near Alise-Sainte-Reine, Burgundy, France
- War
- Gallic Wars
- Sides
- Julius Caesar vs the Gallic coalition under Vercingetorix
- Strength
- About 60,000 Romans (Britannica) vs 80,000 Gauls in the town and a relief army of 250,000 foot and 8,000 horse, by Caesar's count
- Result
- Siege won; relief army beaten and Vercingetorix surrendered
In 52 BC, six years into Caesar's conquest, most of Gaul rose behind Vercingetorix. He shut himself into the hilltop town of Alesia with 80,000 picked men and grain for about 30 days, by Caesar's own count. Caesar, whose army Britannica puts at about 60,000 men, chose to starve him out. His men dug a ring of works around the hill, 11 miles (18 km) long by Caesar's account, then a second, 14 miles (22.5 km) long, facing outward against the relief army they knew would come.4
It came, by Caesar's count 250,000 foot and 8,000 horse, while inside the town the chieftain Critognatus urged the starving garrison to eat those too old to fight rather than surrender. Plutarch, writing much later, makes it 300,000 outside and 170,000 inside, which shows how freely such numbers grew. The legions fought facing both ways until Caesar led fresh troops in himself and his cavalry fell on the Gauls from the rear. The next day Vercingetorix rode out in his finest armor and sat down at Caesar's feet; he was kept for Caesar's triumph and later put to death. When Caesar's dispatches reached Rome, the Senate decreed twenty days of thanksgiving. His Gallic numbers are surely inflated, but his ditches are real: digs in 1861 and 1862 traced them.5
Why it ranks here: Alesia takes full marks for decisiveness and consequence: it ended Gallic independence and gave Caesar the veteran army and the fame he took into the civil war, Plutarch notes. Recognition and memory score 4 and certainty 3, because Caesar is the main witness to his own victory; it ties Actium on 43, level on recognition and consequence, and goes above it as the older battle.6
3 Actium, 31 BC
- Where
- Off the Actium promontory, at the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, western Greece
- War
- Final civil war of the Roman Republic
- Sides
- Octavian, with Agrippa commanding at sea, vs Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII
- Strength
- Antony 230 to 500 warships vs Octavian 250 to 300; ancient and modern counts differ widely
- Result
- Octavian's victory; 300 ships captured by Augustus' own count
This was a war between Romans, though Rome was told otherwise: Octavian held the West, Mark Antony the East with Cleopatra of Egypt as his ally, and Octavian's propaganda cast it as a fight against a foreign queen. In 31 BC Agrippa seized the bases along Antony's supply route from Egypt and penned his fleet and army in at the Gulf of Ambracia, where hunger wore them down. The fleets cannot be counted: Plutarch gives Antony 500 warships against Octavian's 250, while Jona Lendering puts Antony's navy at 230 vessels and has Agrippa alone sail with 300 war galleys.7
On 2 September Antony attacked through the center. Cleopatra's 60 ships hoisted sail and slipped through the gap, Antony followed, and the fleet he left behind was beaten and burned. Myth vs fact: Plutarch has a lovesick Antony “dragged along by the woman”, but Lendering reads a planned break-out on the afternoon north wind, which saved the leaders and lost the war. Plutarch, citing Augustus, gives no more than 5,000 dead and 300 ships captured; Antony's legions soon went over. A year later Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves in Alexandria, and in 27 BC Octavian, now sole master of the Roman world, took the name Augustus. On the site of his camp rose Nicopolis, the “victory city”.8
Why it ranks here: Actium takes full marks for decisiveness and consequence: it ended the civil wars and turned the Republic into one man's rule. Recognition and memory score 4 and certainty 3, since we see the fight through Augustan propaganda; it ties Alesia on 43, level on recognition and consequence, and goes below it as the younger battle.
4 Zama, 202 BC
- Where
- Plain near Zama, in today's Tunisia (exact site debated)
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- Scipio, with the Numidian king Masinissa, vs Hannibal
- Strength
- Masinissa brought Scipio 6,000 foot and 4,000 horse; Hannibal had over 80 elephants (Polybius)
- Result
- Roman victory; Carthage accepted Rome's terms
Rome won the Second Punic War by refusing to fight it only on Hannibal's ground: while he was still in Italy, Scipio invaded Africa, laid siege to Utica, won the Numidian king Masinissa to his side and burned the camps of the armies Carthage raised against him, until the city called Hannibal home. Masinissa joined Scipio before the battle with 6,000 foot and 4,000 horse. Hannibal put more than 80 elephants in front, some 12,000 mercenaries behind them, then Libyans and Carthaginians, and last his veterans from Italy. Polybius says the Carthaginians fought for their own safety and the Romans “for the empire of the world.”9
Scipio drew up his maniples in columns with open lanes between them, and many elephants ran down the lanes or turned back on their own lines. The infantry fight stayed close until Laelius and Masinissa came back from chasing Hannibal's cavalry and fell on his rear. Polybius counts more than 1,500 Romans dead against 20,000 Carthaginians killed and nearly as many taken, and calls it the battle “which decided the war in favour of Rome.” The peace left Carthage ten triremes and no elephants, a bill of 10,000 talents over fifty years, and no right to make war outside Africa, or inside it without asking Rome.10
Why it ranks here: Zama takes full marks for decisiveness and consequence, since it ended the war that made Rome master of the western Mediterranean, and Polybius tells it well, certainty 4. It is less famous than Cannae and has little living memory, memory 3, which outweighs its better certainty and leaves it one point behind Alesia and Actium.
5 Carthage, 149 to 146 BC
- Where
- Carthage, on the coast near modern Tunis, Tunisia
- War
- Third Punic War
- Sides
- Rome, from 147 BC under Scipio Aemilianus, vs the city of Carthage
- Strength
- Up to 80,000 Roman foot and 4,000 horse (Appian) vs a city behind a triple wall on the landward side
- Result
- City stormed and razed in 146 BC; survivors enslaved
Beaten twice, Carthage prospered again on trade, and in the Senate Cato kept saying that “Carthage must be destroyed.” In 150 BC Carthage fought the Numidian king Masinissa, breaking the peace of Zama, which forbade it any war in Africa without Rome's consent. In Appian's account, up to 80,000 foot and 4,000 horse landed in Africa in 149 BC. Rome demanded the city's weapons, then ordered its people to resettle at least 15 km from the sea. Carthage refused and held out behind its walls, triple on the landward side.11
For two years the Romans got nowhere. In 147 BC Scipio Aemilianus, adoptive grandson of the victor of Zama, took command, blockaded the city and closed its harbor mouth with a mole. In the spring of 146 BC his troops broke in and fought house to house for six days and nights, in Appian's account, until 50,000 people came out of the citadel to surrender. Scipio, Appian writes, wept for a city that had flourished 700 years, quoted Homer on Troy and told his tutor Polybius he feared the same fate one day for Rome. Rome celebrated all night in the streets. The survivors were sold, the city razed and its land made a province. Myth vs fact: nobody sowed the ground with salt; Appian never mentions it, and the story is a later invention.12
Why it ranks here: Carthage takes full marks for decisiveness and consequence: Rome ended its oldest rival as a state. Memory scores 3, and certainty 3, as Appian and fragments of Polybius are the main sources; it ties the Milvian Bridge on 41, level on recognition and consequence, and goes above it as the older.
6 Milvian Bridge, AD 312
- Where
- Milvian Bridge over the Tiber, just north of Rome
- War
- Civil wars of the Tetrarchy
- Sides
- Constantine vs Maxentius
- Strength
- Constantine 98,000 vs Maxentius 188,000 in Zosimus, a much later count; nearly 40,000 for Constantine in Britannica
- Result
- Constantine's victory; Maxentius drowned in the Tiber
In 312 the Roman world had several emperors, and Rome itself belonged to Maxentius. Constantine crossed the Alps into Italy, and Maxentius came out across the Tiber to meet him. The pagan historian Zosimus, writing much later, gives Constantine 90,000 foot and 8,000 horse and Maxentius 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse; Britannica gives Constantine an army of nearly 40,000; nobody can check either.13
Lactantius, a Christian writer of the time, says Constantine was told in a dream to mark the heavenly sign, the monogram of Christ, on his soldiers' shields. On 28 October Maxentius' army broke, and he was driven into the Tiber as the crowd of fugitives pressed onto the broken bridge. The Senate, Lactantius writes, hailed him with great rejoicing and voted him the title Maximus. Myth vs fact: the cross of light in the sky with the words “Conquer by this” comes from Eusebius, who heard it from the emperor long afterward, and it does not match Lactantius' dream. Rome's own monument is more careful: the arch the Senate dedicated in 315 says Constantine avenged the state “by divine inspiration”, without naming a god. In 313 Constantine and his fellow emperor Licinius agreed at Milan that Christians and all others should be free to follow their own religion, and the empire was on its way to becoming Christian.14
Why it ranks here: The Milvian Bridge takes full marks for consequence, because it gave Constantine Rome and opened the road to a Christian empire. Decisiveness is 4, as he still had to beat Licinius to rule the whole empire, and certainty 3, since the vision rests on two Christian writers who disagree; it ties Carthage on 41, level on recognition and consequence, and goes below it as the younger.
7 Cannae, 216 BC
- Where
- Plain by the Aufidus river, Apulia, southern Italy
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- The consuls Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro vs Hannibal
- Strength
- About 80,000 Roman foot and 6,000 horse vs some 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse (Polybius)
- Result
- Roman army destroyed; 48,200 (our sum of Livy's figures) to about 70,000 (Polybius) dead
In 216 BC the Senate sent both consuls, Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro, against Hannibal in Apulia. Polybius gives them about 80,000 foot and rather more than 6,000 horse against Hannibal's 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse. Hannibal let his crescent of Celts and Spaniards give way under the weight of the legions, closed his African infantry on both flanks, and sent his cavalry, once it had routed the Roman horse, round into the Roman rear. Polybius counts about 70,000 Roman dead and 10,000 captured; Livy gives 45,500 foot and 2,700 horse killed, Paullus among them. Both are ancient figures and disputed.15
What came next is Rome's half of the story. The city went into such mourning that the festival of Ceres was suspended, the state bought and armed slaves, some 8,000 of them in Livy's account, and the Senate refused to ransom the men Hannibal had taken. Much of the south went over to Hannibal, yet no one in Rome spoke the word peace, and when Varro, the surviving consul, came home, he was formally thanked for not having “despaired of the republic.” Polybius says that beaten as they were, the Romans recovered Italy, defeated Carthage and within a few years made themselves masters of the whole world. Cannae itself won a name: Schlieffen built his “Cannae concept” of encirclement and annihilation on it.16
Why it ranks here: Recognition and memory take full marks: Cannae is Rome's most famous defeat and still the word for an encirclement. But Rome refused to make peace and won the war, so decisiveness 2 and consequence 3, which holds it at seventh, below six battles that decided wars.
8 Jerusalem, AD 70
- Where
- Jerusalem, Roman province of Judaea
- War
- First Jewish-Roman War, AD 66 to 74
- Sides
- Titus vs the Jewish factions of Simon bar Giora and John of Gischala
- Strength
- Four legions with auxiliaries vs about 23,400 fighters, by our sum of Josephus' figures
- Result
- City taken and the Temple burned; 1,100,000 dead by Josephus' uncheckable count
For Rome the Jewish revolt was a provincial war that ended up making an emperor: Nero sent Vespasian to fight it, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in 69 he handed the war to his son Titus. On 14 April 70, at Passover, Titus laid siege to Jerusalem with four legions. Inside, by Josephus' count, Simon bar Giora held part of the city with 10,000 men and 5,000 Idumeans, and John of Gischala the rest with 6,000 and 2,400 Zealots, with crowds of pilgrims trapped among them.17
The Romans broke through the outer walls, then walled the city in to starve it. Josephus says that 500 people a day, and some days more, were caught outside and crucified. In August the Temple burned, and by 8 September Titus held what was left of the city. Josephus counts 1,100,000 dead, while Tacitus gives 600,000 for all the besieged; neither figure can be checked. In 71 Vespasian and Titus held a joint triumph: the Temple's golden table and lampstand were carried through Rome and Simon was executed; Josephus calls the day a festival for the end of Rome's “civil miseries.” The spoils went into Vespasian's new Temple of Peace, and the Arch of Titus still shows the menorah. Jews still mourn the Temple on Tisha B'Av.18
Why it ranks here: Jerusalem takes full marks for decisiveness and memory: it decided the Jewish War and lives on in the Arch of Titus and Tisha B'Av. For Rome it only ended a provincial revolt, so consequence 3; recognition scores 3, and certainty 3 because Josephus' toll cannot be checked, which leaves it one point below Cannae.
9 Pharsalus, 48 BC
- Where
- The plain by the Enipeus river near Pharsalus, Thessaly, Greece
- War
- Caesar's civil war
- Sides
- Julius Caesar vs Pompey the Great and the Senate's army
- Strength
- 22,000 foot and 1,000 horse vs 45,000 foot and 7,000 horse, by Caesar's count; Appian reports totals for both sides of 60,000 to 70,000 Italians
- Result
- Caesar's victory; 6,000 (Asinius Pollio) to 15,000 (Caesar) Pompeian dead
In January 48 BC Caesar crossed the Adriatic after Pompey, who had left Italy to gather the Senate's forces in the east. Beaten at Dyrrachium in July, Caesar marched inland into Thessaly with Pompey's larger army behind him. The senators in Pompey's camp wanted a swift end to the war, and on 9 August the armies met near Pharsalus. Caesar gives himself 80 cohorts, about 22,000 men, and 1,000 horse against 110 cohorts of 45,000 and 7,000 horse, and Appian notes that other writers gave totals up to an absurd 400,000.19
Caesar had read the plan. Pompey massed his cavalry on the left to ride round Caesar's right, so Caesar took six cohorts from his rear line and posted them behind that wing. When the Pompeian horse swept forward, the cohorts charged, drove them into the hills, cut down the archers and slingers and swung into the rear of Pompey's left; then Caesar's fresh third line went in and Pompey's legions fled to their camp. Caesar claims 15,000 enemy dead and more than 24,000 prisoners for 200 soldiers and 30 centurions; Asinius Pollio, one of his officers, counted 6,000 Pompeian dead, close to the “almost 6,000” Jona Lendering gives. Pompey fled to Egypt and was murdered there on 28 September. His allies fought on until Caesar beat them at Thapsus in Africa and Munda in Spain.20
Why it ranks here: Pharsalus decided the civil war that ended the Republic, which earns full marks for consequence, and Caesar's own account, checked against Appian and Pollio, earns certainty 4. Decisiveness is 4 because the war went on to Thapsus and Munda, and recognition 3 keeps it below the better known Actium.
10 Adrianople, AD 378
- Where
- Near Adrianople (today Edirne, Turkey), Thrace
- War
- The Gothic War of 376 to 382
- Sides
- Emperor Valens vs the Goths under Fritigern, with Greuthungi and Alan cavalry
- Strength
- No ancient figure; modern estimates run from about 15,000 Romans (Peter Heather) to at least 20,000 (EBSCO); Heather puts the Roman dead at 10,000 to 15,000
- Result
- Gothic victory; Valens killed and barely a third of his army escaped (Ammianus)
In 376 the Goths, driven west by the Huns, were let across the Danube into Thrace in return for soldiers for the army. Starved and cheated by Roman officials, they revolted. Valens, emperor in the East, came back from the Persian front and in the summer of 378 marched on Adrianople. His nephew Gratian was bringing help from the West, but scouts reported only about 10,000 Goths, and Valens would not share the victory.21
On 9 August the Romans, after a hot morning's march, sighted the Gothic wagon circle. Fritigern spun out peace talks while his absent horsemen hurried back. The Roman left had pushed right up to the wagons when the Greuthungi cavalry of Alatheus and Saphrax, with a band of Alans, dashed out, in Ammianus Marcellinus' words, “as a thunderbolt does near high mountains.” The left collapsed and the packed infantry could hardly draw their swords. At nightfall Valens fell, probably to an arrow, and his body was never found; two generals and 35 tribunes died with him. “Barely a third part of our army escaped,” Ammianus writes, and the annals recorded no such massacre except Cannae. Rome never destroyed the victors: in 382 Theodosius gave them land inside the empire and self-rule in return for military service. EBSCO warns that the details, mostly from Ammianus, cannot be reconstructed accurately.22
Why it ranks here: Adrianople killed an emperor and let an undefeated Gothic people settle inside the empire, the start of the West's unravelling, so consequence 5. One main source and a name few readers know hold it to certainty 3 and recognition 3; it ties Philippi on points and on recognition and goes ahead on consequence.
11 Philippi, 42 BC
- Where
- The plain west of Philippi, eastern Macedonia, Greece
- War
- The Liberators' civil war
- Sides
- Mark Antony and Octavian vs Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius
- Strength
- 19 legions on each side, the Republican ones under strength, with 13,000 triumviral vs 20,000 Republican horse (Appian)
- Result
- Two battles in October; Cassius and Brutus killed themselves and about 14,000 Republicans surrendered
Two years after the Ides of March, Brutus and Cassius held the eastern provinces with the last great army of the Republic. Mark Antony and Caesar's heir Octavian came after them, and in October 42 BC the armies met west of Philippi, where the Liberators had fortified two hills across the main road from Europe to Asia. Appian gives each side 19 legions, the Republican ones short of full strength, and gives the triumvirs 13,000 horse against the Republicans' 20,000.23
On 3 October Antony stormed Cassius' camp from the marsh, while Brutus' men routed Octavian's legions and took their camp. Cassius, believing all was lost, took his own life. Each side had won on one wing; Plutarch puts Brutus' dead at 8,000 and the enemy's, by Messala's estimate, at more than twice as many. Brutus mourned Cassius as “the last of the Romans” but weeks later, pressed by his officers, he fought again and Antony broke his line. Brutus fell on his sword; about 14,000 of his men surrendered, and with them the Republican cause was finished. The victors refounded Philippi as a Roman colony. The name lives on through Shakespeare, who sets the last act of Julius Caesar on the field, after Caesar's ghost has warned Brutus that he will see him again at Philippi.24
Why it ranks here: Philippi destroyed the last army of the Republic and both its leaders, so decisiveness 5, but it left Antony and Octavian to fight for the prize at Actium, consequence 4, and ancient and modern figures that disagree keep certainty at 3. It ties Adrianople on points and on recognition and falls behind it on consequence.
12 Watling Street, AD 60 or 61
- Where
- Unknown; probably near the Roman road now called Watling Street, in the English Midlands
- War
- Boudica's revolt
- Sides
- Gaius Suetonius Paulinus vs Boudica's Iceni, the Trinovantes and their allies
- Strength
- About 10,000 Romans (Tacitus) vs 230,000 Britons (Cassius Dio); on a modern estimate 11,000 to 13,000 against up to 100,000
- Result
- Roman victory; “little less than 80,000” Britons and some 400 Romans killed, by the reports Tacitus repeats
In AD 60 or 61, while the governor Suetonius Paulinus was attacking the island of Mona, Boudica, queen of the Iceni, raised the Trinovantes and other tribes and burned Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium and Verulamium (St Albans). Tacitus counts close on 70,000 dead there. Paulinus gathered the Fourteenth Legion, part of the Twentieth and auxiliaries, some 10,000 men by Tacitus' count, and chose a narrow defile with a wood at his back. Cassius Dio gives Boudica 230,000, and the historian Graham Webster, quoted by the University of Warwick, perhaps 100,000 against 11,000 to 13,000 Romans.25
The Britons parked their wives in wagons at the edge of the plain to watch. The legionaries held the defile, emptied their javelins into the packed mass and charged in wedges; the fleeing Britons were trapped against their own wagons, and not even the women were spared. Tacitus reports, “by some accounts”, little less than 80,000 British dead for about 400 Romans, a figure he passes on rather than vouches for. Boudica died soon after, of poison by Tacitus' account and of illness by Dio's. Myth vs fact: the battle is named after the Roman road, but nobody knows where it was fought; High Cross, Mancetter and Towcester are among the sites put forward. Thomas Thornycroft's bronze Boudica in her chariot has stood by Westminster Bridge since 1902.26
Why it ranks here: Paulinus kept Britain Roman when the revolt had come close to driving Rome out, so decisiveness and consequence 4, and Boudica is still a British national figure, memory 4. An unknown site and numbers no one trusts leave certainty at 2; it ties Numantia on points and on recognition and goes ahead on consequence.
13 Numantia, 134 to 133 BC
- Where
- La Muela hill at Garray, near Soria, Spain
- War
- The Numantine War
- Sides
- Scipio Aemilianus vs the Celtiberian town of Numantia
- Strength
- About 60,000 Romans, allies and Spanish auxiliaries (Appian) vs about 4,000 defenders (Numancia site team), or 8,000 fighting men before the war (Appian)
- Result
- Town starved into surrender in the summer of 133 BC after about eleven months; razed and its people sold
Numantia, a Celtiberian town on a hill above the Duero, had defied Rome since 153 BC. It beat army after army; when Mancinus made a treaty with it, the Senate handed him over naked, and the Numantines refused him. In 134 BC a weary Rome made Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage, consul again to end it. He threw the traders and soothsayers out of the idle army and drilled it for months before going near the town.27
Scipio refused the battles the Numantines kept offering. With some 60,000 men, many of them Spanish auxiliaries, he ringed the town with seven forts, a ditch and palisade and a wall with towers every 30 meters, about 9 kilometers round, and barred the Duero with floating beams studded with blades. When the young men of Lutia tried to send help, he cut off the hands of 400 of them. The starving Numantines boiled hides, then ate their dead; many killed themselves, and the rest came out after about eleven months. Scipio kept 50 for his triumph, sold the others and razed the town. Myth vs fact: excavation found a modest town of plain houses, not the monumental city of Spanish patriotic painting, yet from Cervantes' tragedy onwards its last stand became a national symbol of resistance.28
Why it ranks here: Numantia ended twenty years of war in the Spanish interior, decisiveness 5, and lives on as Spain's byword for resistance to the end, memory 4. Its fall did not finish the conquest of Hispania, consequence 3, and the story comes chiefly through Appian, certainty 2; it ties Watling Street on points and on recognition and falls behind it on consequence.
14 Lake Trasimene, 217 BC
- Where
- The north shore of Lake Trasimene, central Italy
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- The consul Gaius Flaminius vs Hannibal
- Strength
- About 25,000 Romans and allies (our sum of Livius.org's breakdown); Carthaginian strength not recorded
- Result
- Carthaginian victory; about 15,000 Romans killed (Polybius, Livy), Flaminius among them
In 217 BC Rome meant to catch Hannibal between two consular armies. Gaius Flaminius waited at Arretium with two legions of 5,000, 10,000 Italian allies, 2,000 archers and light troops and 2,500 to 3,500 horse: about 25,000 men by our sum of Jona Lendering's figures. Polybius calls Flaminius a mob courtier and demagogue with no talent for war, and Hannibal counted on it: he marched past the Roman camp and plundered the country ahead, sure the consul would follow. By night he hid his army on the hills above the lakeshore road.29
On a June morning, with fog off the lake lying thick on the shore, the Roman column marched into the defile and was attacked from front, flank and rear at once. Flaminius was cut down by Celts; men who waded into the lake died in the water, and Livy says the fighting was so fierce that no one felt an earthquake that flattened towns across Italy. Polybius and Livy both give about 15,000 Roman dead, and some 6,000 who had cut their way out surrendered next day to Maharbal. In Rome a praetor told the crowd, “We have been defeated in a great battle.” The Assembly gave Quintus Fabius Maximus a dictator's powers, and his strategy of wearing Hannibal down held until the consuls of 216 abandoned it at Cannae.30
Why it ranks here: The ambush is the best known Roman defeat after Cannae, and Polybius and Livy tell it alike, so recognition, memory and certainty all score 4. Like Cannae it did not decide the war, so decisiveness 2 and consequence 3; it ties the Metaurus and Pydna on points and goes ahead of both on recognition.
15 The Metaurus, 207 BC
- Where
- The Metaurus River near the Adriatic coast, central Italy
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- The consuls Gaius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator vs Hasdrubal Barca
- Strength
- Not recorded in full; Nero brought 6,000 picked foot and 1,000 horse north to join his colleague (Livy)
- Result
- Roman victory; Hasdrubal killed; 10,000 (Polybius) to 56,000 (Livy) Carthaginian dead
In 207 BC Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal crossed the Alps from Spain with a second army. His riders carrying a letter to Hannibal lost their way and were caught, and the consul Gaius Claudius Nero, who was watching Hannibal in the south, slipped away with, by Livy's count, 6,000 picked foot and 1,000 horse to join his colleague Marcus Livius Salinator in the north.31
Hasdrubal noticed that the trumpet sounded twice in the Roman camp, guessed that both consuls were there and retreated by night; his guides slipped away, and dawn found his army lost along the winding river. Nero took cohorts from his blocked wing behind the Roman line onto the Carthaginian flank, and when the day was plainly lost Hasdrubal spurred his horse into a Roman cohort and died fighting. Livy counts 56,000 enemy dead and 5,400 prisoners for about 8,000 Romans and allies; Polybius, writing far closer to the events, gives at least 10,000 Carthaginians and Gauls against 2,000 Romans. Back in his own camp, Nero had Hasdrubal's head thrown before Hannibal's outposts; Hannibal, it was said, saw in it the doom of Carthage and drew back into Bruttium. In 1851 Edward Creasy made the Metaurus one of his fifteen decisive battles of the world.32
Why it ranks here: It ended Carthage's last real hope of winning in Italy and Creasy made its name, so decisiveness and consequence 4, but Zama still had to settle the war; recognition is 3, and Livy and Polybius are five times apart on the dead, certainty 3. It ties Lake Trasimene and Pydna on points: Trasimene is better known, and Pydna, level on recognition and consequence, is younger, so the Metaurus closes the list.
How we chose and ranked these battles of ancient Rome
We counted a battle on land or at sea fought by Rome, from the early Republic to the end of the Western Empire in AD 476, and we counted the defeats as well as the victories, because Cannae and the Teutoburg Forest shaped Rome as surely as Zama and Actium. Sieges and sea battles count when they decided a war or the fate of a state, so Alesia, Carthage and Jerusalem are here; battles known only from legend, such as Silva Arsia in the first year of the Republic, are not. The same battles are weighed against the whole ancient world in our guide to the greatest ancient battles, the sieges among themselves in the greatest sieges in history, the wars with Hannibal from the other side in the greatest battles of Carthage, and the eastern empire after 476 in the greatest battles of the Byzantine Empire.33
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which Roman battles are the greatest and best known; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of Roman battles, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of Rome or of the state it fought, 3 if it decided a campaign, 1 if the war went on as if it had not happened.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed the course of Roman history for generations (the Republic fell, a rival state ended, a frontier was fixed, a new faith was favored), 1 if its effects were local and short.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living part of culture (a word, a monument, a national story, a play or a film), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if a contemporary or near contemporary account tells the battle in detail and other writers agree with it, 1 if it rests on one late source; head counts from Livy, Appian or Plutarch lower the score.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why Cannae, Rome's most famous defeat, is only seventh: Hannibal destroyed a Roman army in a single day, but Rome refused to make peace and won the war, and Zama, not Cannae, decided it.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Decisiveness ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Teutoburg Forest | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 46 |
| 2 | Alesia | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 43 |
| 3 | Actium | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 43 |
| 4 | Zama | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 42 |
| 5 | Carthage | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 41 |
| 6 | Milvian Bridge | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 41 |
| 7 | Cannae | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 39 |
| 8 | Jerusalem | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 38 |
| 9 | Pharsalus | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 37 |
| 10 | Adrianople | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 36 |
| 11 | Philippi | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 36 |
| 12 | Watling Street | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 35 |
| 13 | Numantia | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 35 |
| 14 | Lake Trasimene | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 34 |
| 15 | Metaurus | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 34 |
Close calls
Five battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Pydna, 168 BC. Lucius Aemilius Paullus broke the phalanx of King Perseus on 22 June 168 BC; Livy, who follows Polybius, counts 20,000 Macedonian dead, and Rome then split Macedonia into four cantons paying it tribute, the end of the kingdom. For Rome it confirmed a supremacy in the Greek east already won at Cynoscephalae, and it ties the Metaurus on 34 points, level on recognition and consequence, and misses fifteenth as the younger battle.34
Cynoscephalae, 197 BC. Flamininus' legions beat the phalanx of Philip V in the hills of Thessaly; Polybius counts about 700 Roman dead against some 8,000 Macedonians killed and 5,000 taken, and uses the battle for his famous comparison of legion and phalanx. It ended the Second Macedonian War, but Macedon survived until Pydna, and the battle misses by one point.35
The Allia, 390 BC. Gauls routed a Roman army at a stream northeast of the city and went on to occupy Rome; in Livy most of the Romans fled before they had even fought, and the day of the battle, 18 July, stayed a day of ill omen on which no public business was done. But the year itself is uncertain (390 by the Roman count, 387 or 386 BC by modern reckoning) and the story rests on writers of more than three centuries later, so certainty 1.36
Sarmizegetusa, AD 106. Trajan took the Dacian capital, Decebalus killed himself and Dacia became Roman; Trajan's Column, completed in 113, tells his Dacian campaigns in a spiral of reliefs. Cassius Dio survives here only in an abridgement and few readers know the name, so it ties the Allia on 32 and misses on recognition.37
Catalaunian Plains, AD 451. Aetius and his Visigothic allies checked Attila somewhere between Troyes and Châlons, but Attila invaded Italy the next year, and the main account, by Jordanes in the sixth century, gives him half a million men. Its fame as the battle that saved the West outruns what it decided, and it misses on 31.38
Why is a defeat first on a list of Rome's greatest battles?
Because the list weighs how much a battle mattered to Rome, not whether Rome won it, and no battle is better known or did more to fix the shape of the empire than the Teutoburg Forest: after Varus lost three legions in AD 9, Rome gave up the conquest of Germany in AD 16 and the Rhine stayed its frontier. The same rule brings in Cannae, Lake Trasimene and Adrianople, where the Goths killed an emperor. A victory, in turn, scores what it decided: the greatest Roman victories here are Alesia, which finished the conquest of Gaul, Actium, which ended the civil wars, and Zama, which ended the war with Hannibal, second to fourth on the list.39
Why do Cannae and Lake Trasimene rank so low?
They rank low because Rome won the war they were fought in: Hannibal's ambush at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC killed the consul Flaminius and about 15,000 Romans, and Cannae a year later destroyed a whole army, but Rome refused to make peace and Scipio's victory at Zama in 202 BC decided the war. So both score 2 for decisiveness and 3 for consequence, the scores Cannae has in our guide to the greatest ancient battles. Cannae climbs back to seventh on full marks for recognition and memory; Trasimene, less famous, ties the Metaurus and Pydna on 34 points and is fourteenth. A defeat ranks high only when, like the Teutoburg Forest or Adrianople, it changed what Rome could do afterward.40
Meet the men who led them in the greatest commanders of ancient Rome, or see how their soldiers fought in how the Roman legion worked.
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Livius.org, “Lake Trasimene (217 BCE)”; Peter Heather, “The Battle of Hadrianople”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Odoacer”. ↩
- Museum und Park Kalkriese, “The Varus Battle”; Livius.org, “Teutoburg Forest (9 CE)”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of the Teutoburg Forest”; Livius.org, “Teutoburg Forest (5)”. ↩
- Cassius Dio, “Cassius Dio, Book LVI”; Suetonius, “The Life of Augustus”; Tacitus, “Tacitus, Annals, Book I”; Livius.org, “Teutoburg Forest (7): Aftermath”; Museum und Park Kalkriese, “The Varus Battle”; Livius.org, “Teutoburg Forest (9 CE)”. ↩
- Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 71”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Vercingetorix”; Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 69”; Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 74”; Livius.org, “Alesia (52 BCE)”. ↩
- Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 76”; Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 77”; Plutarch, “The Life of Julius Caesar”; Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 88”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Vercingetorix”; Julius Caesar, “Gallic War, Book 7, chapter 90”; French Ministry of Culture, “The Alesia question”; Livius.org, “Alesia (52 BCE)”. ↩
- Plutarch, “The Life of Julius Caesar”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Actium (31 BCE)”; Cassius Dio, “Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 50”; Plutarch, “The Life of Antony”. ↩
- Plutarch, “The Life of Antony”; Livius.org, “Actium (31 BCE)”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Augustus”; Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, “Nicopolis”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book 14”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Scipio Africanus”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome 30.20”; Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XV”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XV”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Scipio Africanus”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Carthage”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 14”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 15”; Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XV”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 16”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 17”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 19”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Scipio Africanus the Younger”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 25”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 26”; Appian, “Appian, The Punic Wars 27”; Chris S. Saladin, “A Salty Reception”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Battle of the Milvian Bridge”; Zosimus, “Zosimus, Historia Nova, Book 2”. ↩
- Lactantius, “Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Battle of the Milvian Bridge”; Eusebius, “Life of Constantine, Book I”; State University of New York at Oneonta, “Arch of Constantine”; Samuel Ball Platner and Thomas Ashby, “Arcus Constantini”; Lactantius, “Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Edict of Milan”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, The Histories, Book III”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 22, chapter 49”. ↩
- Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 22, chapter 49”; Polybius, “Polybius, The Histories, Book III”; HistoryNet, “The Enduring Mystique of Cannae”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Siege of Jerusalem”; Livius.org, “Titus’ Siege of Jerusalem”; Flavius Josephus, “Of the War, Book V”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Titus’ Siege of Jerusalem”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Siege of Jerusalem”; Flavius Josephus, “Of the War, Book V”; Flavius Josephus, “Of the War, Book VI”; Tacitus, “Tacitus, Histories, Book 5”; Flavius Josephus, “Of the War, Book VII”; Center for Jewish History, “The Arch of Titus”; My Jewish Learning, “Tisha B’Av 101”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Pharsalus (48 BCE)”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Pharsalus”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 89”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 88”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 84”; Appian, “Appian, The Civil Wars, Book II”. ↩
- Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 89”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 93”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 94”; Julius Caesar, “Caesar, Civil War, Book 3, chapter 99”; Appian, “Appian, The Civil Wars, Book II”; Livius.org, “Pharsalus (48 BCE)”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Pompey the Great”; Plutarch, “The Life of Pompey”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Pharsalus”; Plutarch, “The Life of Julius Caesar”. ↩
- Peter Heather, “The Battle of Hadrianople”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Battle of Adrianople”; Ammianus Marcellinus, “Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, Book XXXI”. ↩
- Ammianus Marcellinus, “Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, Book XXXI”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Battle of Adrianople”; Peter Heather, “The Battle of Hadrianople”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Philippi (42 BCE)”; Appian, “Appian, The Civil Wars, Book IV”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Philippi (42 BCE)”; Plutarch, “The Life of Brutus”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Marcus Junius Brutus”; Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, “Philippoi”; Folger Shakespeare Library, “Julius Caesar”. ↩
- Tacitus, “Tacitus, Annals, Book XIV”; London Museum, “Boudica”; University of Warwick, “Boudica's Defeat”; Cassius Dio, “Cassius Dio, Book LXII”. ↩
- Tacitus, “Tacitus, Annals, Book XIV”; University of Warwick, “Boudica's Defeat”; London Museum, “Boudica”; The Historical Association, “Boudica at Mancetter”; British Listed Buildings, “Boadicea (Boudicca) Statuary Group, City of Westminster, London”. ↩
- Numancia Soria, “Scipio’s siege”; Appian, “Appian, The Spanish Wars 17”; Appian, “Appian, The Spanish Wars 18”. ↩
- Appian, “Appian, The Spanish Wars 18”; Appian, “Appian, The Spanish Wars 19”; Numancia Soria, “Scipio’s siege”; Appian, “Appian, The Spanish Wars 20”; Numancia Soria, “End City”; Numancia Soria, “The use of Numantia in the last centuries”; Numancia Soria, “Numantia in the Imperial idea of Spain”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Lake Trasimene (217 BCE)”; Polybius, “Polybius, The Histories, Book III”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, The Histories, Book III”; Livius.org, “Lake Trasimene (217 BCE)”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 22, chapter 4”. ↩
- Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 27, chapter 43”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Gaius Claudius Nero”. ↩
- Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 27, chapter 43”; Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XI”; Edward S. Creasy, “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Odoacer”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Pydna (168 BCE)”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 44, chapter 42”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 45, chapter 29”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XVIII”; Livius.org, “Cynoscephalae (197 BCE)”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Allia (387 or 386 BCE)”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 6, chapter 1”. ↩
- Cassius Dio, “Cassius Dio, Epitome of Book LXVIII”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Trajan’s Column”. ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of the Catalaunian Plains”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Attila”; Jordanes, “The Origin and Deeds of the Goths”. ↩
- Museum und Park Kalkriese, “The Varus Battle”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of the Teutoburg Forest”. ↩
- Polybius, “Polybius, The Histories, Book III”; Livy, “Livy, History of Rome, Book 22, chapter 49”; Polybius, “Polybius, Histories, Book XV”. ↩
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- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Trajan’s Column”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of the Catalaunian Plains”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Attila”
- Jordanes, Getica 35.182, tr. Charles C. Mierow, Project Gutenberg, “The Origin and Deeds of the Goths”
